Kids Learn Quick
by kkeya
Summary: It was Cassie's birthday. We were trying to bake a cake. You know, as a surprise. It wasn't going too well.


**Kids Learn Quick**.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Marco asked. "I mean, you're not exactly big in the cooking department."

"It'll be fine," Rachel frowned. "Me and Jake helped our bubbe bake all the time when we were kids."

We were in Rachel's kitchen, all of us except for Cassie. It was the weekend. Her sisters were out, her mother was out, and there wasn't any mission, for once. Or not a mission that was likely to get us killed, anyway. It was Cassie's birthday. We were trying to bake a cake. You know, as a surprise.

It wasn't going too well.

"Maybe Jake should be in charge. You'll just burn it."

"No, I won't."

"Rachel, you know you will."

"It'll be fine. It's just flour and sugar, basically, right? It can't be that hard."

"You don't even have a recipe?"

"No, we do," I said. "It's just under all the ingredients." I grabbed the recipe book, almost tipping over the flour.

"May I taste the batter?" Ax asked. He was in his human morph. He was sitting quietly, just watching, for the most part. We'd banned him from helping.

"There's no batter yet, Ax. It's just... flour," Tobias said. He was in human morph, too. "And sugar."

"And eggs," I added.

"You can lick the spoon or something when we're done, okay?" he finished.

"What are we putting on it, anyway?" Marco wondered. "A skunk?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "How about I do the icing?"

"Ten bucks says she manages to burn the icing. We should have just bought a cake."

"Shut up. It'll be great. It'll be, I don't know. Made with love or whatever."

"Since when are you capable of love?" Marco teased. "I didn't know you were capable of love."

"Not for you, maybe."

Marco shot me a look. "She wants me."

"In your dreams," Rachel laughed, giving him a shove.

"Nightmares would be more accurate."

"Okay, what's next?" Rachel asked, ignoring him.

"Uh... vanilla essence," I said, running my finger down the list of ingredients. "Do you have any?"

Rachel checked the cupboard. "Nope," she said. "We have vanilla ice cream, though. Would that work?"

"Oh, this is going to end well," Marco said.

"I guess we could try it," I shrugged. "The recipe says one teaspoon of vanilla essence. How much is that in ice cream?"

"I don't know. Vanilla essence is really strong, right? So, maybe a cup?"

"Can you even hear yourselves?" Marco cried. "This is going to be a disaster."

"You should add more flour to compensate for the ice cream," Tobias said helpfully.

We all stared at him.

"What? Ax watches a lot of cooking shows, okay?" he said defensively.

"I've changed my mind. Tobias should be in charge," Marco said. "He's the only one who seems to know what we're supposed to be doing."

"I'm fine with just being an advisor on this one, thanks."

"So that if anything goes wrong, you get none of the blame?" Marco asked.

"Right."

Rachel rolled her eyes, but she smiled, too. "How much more flour, then? A cup? Cup and a half?"

"I guess so. We can add more if it's still too runny or whatever."

"Okay," She looked at me. "What next?"

"It says orange zest," I said doubtfully.

"I don't even know what that is."

"It's the skin of an orange," Tobias said. "Chopped up really small."

She gave him a look. "That's disgusting."

He shrugged.

"I'm not putting food scraps in my best friend's birthday cake. What next, we peel a potato, put that in? Maybe some leftover onion skin? We have orange juice. Let's just use that."

"Oh, for - Rachel!" Marco shouted, clearly exasperated. "Just follow the recipe!"

"I don't see you doing anything to help."

"No, you're right. I can't. I'm paralysed with fascination. It's like watching a trainwreck."

"I think you're going to need to add more flour," Tobias said doubtfully.

"_More _flour? It's practically all flour as it is."

"Yeah, but you added all that orange juice and it's all runny again."

"You're out of flour, anyway," I said. I'd been waiting for a good time to bring it up.

Rachel sighed. "Oh, well. We tried, anyway." She grabbed a spoon and dunked it in the batter. She looked at Ax. "Come and taste this. Tell us if it's okay."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Marco said. "He thinks cigarette butts are a delicacy."

Rachel handed the spoon to Ax. He put it in his mouth. We all watched him in silence.

"Well?" Rachel said. "How is it?"

Ax said, "It's very nice."

"Good."

"It has a bland, starchy flavour. I can also taste the orange juice. And the texture is very interesting. Very grainy."

"Oh, man," Rachel said.

"That doesn't sound very promising," I admitted.

"Maybe we should add more sugar."

I shrugged. Rachel looked about as discouraged as I felt. "I guess we could give it a try."

She added another cup or so of sugar, then dipped another spoon in for Ax to taste.

"Yes, it is much sweeter now," Ax reported.

"I can't believe this," Marco said. "We have an alien from a distant planet, and what do we do with him? Use him as a taste tester for doomed birthday cake."

"It's not doomed," Rachel said hotly. "Ax just _said _it was sweeter now." She dumped the mix into the cake tin.

"Uh..." Tobias' eyes went wide. He leapt to grab Rachel's arm, but it was too late.

"What is it?"

"I think you're supposed to flour the tin first," Tobias said. "So it doesn't get stuck."

"Oh." Rachel stared at the cake mix. "Well, crap."

"It's fine," I said. "Let's just put it in the oven. We can worry about getting it out again later."

"Right," Rachel said. "How long do we put it in for?"

"I don't know. It says twenty minutes, but we kind of changed the recipe a lot," I said. "Tobias?"

He shrugged.

"Okay, well, there's a lot of it," Rachel said thoughtfully. "Maybe forty-five minutes? An hour?"

"No!" Marco cried. "You'll burn it, Rachel, I swear. Just put it in for the twenty minutes and we can check on it then. If it isn't cooked, we put it in for another ten minutes and check again, okay?"

"What, you think I can't cook?"

"Rachel, I _know _you can't cook. I've been standing here this entire time, watching you be completely incapable of cooking."

"Fine. We'll do it your way, since you think you're so good," Rachel grumbled.

We did it Marco's way. We cooked it for twenty minutes, and then cooked it some more, checking on it every ten minutes. We still burnt the cake. And we demolished half of it trying to get it out of the tin. Then I made the icing with regular sugar instead of icing sugar, which was an accident. I mean, they're both white. It's pretty easy to get them confused.

We were pretty proud, considering, even though it didn't really look much like the cake in the recipe. And Cassie liked it, at least. Well, she said she did, but she gave most of her piece to Ax. So I guess maybe she didn't like it.

Ax liked it, at least.


End file.
